weird experience on the planer. .

[CJoZ]

Looking up at my wall here I see about 15 projects I have made with mahogany. It is one of my preferred woods actually, because I like the color and grain, and it works really well.

So yesterday I cut off a piece for a Russwood welcome plaque off a board I just purchased. I set up the planer and started planing it down to 1/2 inch. Now usually the chips just fly all over, and no worries. This time however, it seemed as if there was some kind of static charge in the wood, because most of the wood chips stuck to the board after it passed through the planer. Was the weirdest thing. Usually I can just shake the board over the trash and poof, it's clear, not this time. I had to wipe the board off each time. . .

Anyone ever had this happen?? The plaque looks pretty good too.

[CJoZ]

Well it turned out ok in the long run.

[dale]

I have no clue why the wood acted like that after being run thru the planer but what i wanted to say was that piece looks great.
Now if I could only cut something like that.

dale

[PuzzledMoose]

No idea about the weird planing problem but that is a very nice plaque - great job, Mark.

[CJoZ]

Seems hard to take pictures of mirrored plexiglass, anyone have any suggestions?

[BobD]

Even in our photo studio, with the professional lights and camera...we have a hard time photographing it...you may want to just replace the acrylic with a piece of colored paper to do the shot...

Dale sent us a mirror panel version of the Lang Clock to photograph...but we just couldn't photograph it! Every shot we took had the photographer or the lighting equipment in it!

Bob

[Bill Wilson]

Hi Mark, it's weird indeed, because I had a similar thing happen to me a couple weeks ago. I was planing some poplar for drawers and I would notice that on a few of the boards the chips would stick just as you describe, like static cling, but then I would run another board through and no static cling. I don't think I ever had that happen before.

[sawdustus]

Mark,
You are experiencing a bad case of static cling. Try wiping the board down with a dryer sheet before planing, it will probably work. The reason for this is twofold; a. the wood is very, very dry and b. the air is very dry. This combination allows a small static charge to build up on the dust and wood fragments produced by the planer that is opposite that of the board, thus they cling. A very, very slight moisting of the board will also probably work.
I hope this helps.

[CanadianScroller]

There are some tips online for photographing mirrors.
One of them used a dark lush cloth like velvet.
Lighting came from an indirect source, like a light tent or umbrella. The angle was set to catch the lush fabric in the relfection.
Sometimes it helsp to put a familiar object in the reflection too, like a plant.
The issue is to make the object accent the piece not take away from it.

[CJoZ]

Thanks for the tips!